Albert Michelson

(1852 - 1931)

Albert Michelson was born in 1852 in Strelno, Prussia. A physicist, the results of his experiment that accurately determined the speed of light underpinned Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. Regarded as a key finding in scientific history, the discovery was made on an instrument he invented and is used today to measure the wavelengths of spectrums. He was the first American to win a Nobel Prize for Physics (1907).

Sources: Dor LeDor